FESTA Ball 2024 recap

In the golden light of a glorious December morning, GoodLuck members cupped their hands before being showered with gifts direct from J’s ball sack.

GRATEFULTENYEARS

To claim the coupon code, go Esc > Adventurer Support > Redeem Coupon Code

Unskippable cutscenes, forced dialogue, and bugs – all trademarks of Black Desert Online – were present throughout the FESTA Ball, held in Korea on 14 December 2024 at 7:00 UTC+0.

The countdown before the show featured art of different classes on each second down to zero, with number zero itself being the Deadeye.

Missed the stream or want to relive the hype? Watch again here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Deadeye

• Ranged class: revolver, shotgun, rocket launcher
• Ascension instead of Awakening
• Global release 24 December 2024

Following her theme tune being played out live on stage, the much-awaited gunslinger class Deadeye was poured whiskey and drank-alone-together alongside GoodLuck members. The promo demo and combat video showed clear steampunk/Western influences and awesome skills such a fanning attack, quick draw attack, brick wall guards, dashes, and rope swing movements, all the while Marni was being gerat.

She uses a revolver mainhand weapon, shotgun subweapon, and a rocket launcher awakening weapon. Rather than going through awakening, Deadeye uses the Ascension system just like Archer.

Deadeye uses an ammunition system and can switch between standard and Marni rounds. Standard rounds deal more damage, but Marni rounds have special traits such as penetrating or larger AoE.

Deadeye will be released globally on 24 December. Not long to wait!

Gear progression

• Enhancement aid benefits for new players
• PEN boss gear guaranteed enhancement
• HEX to DEC enhancement levels for graduated Tuvala gear and accessories
• Agris Anvil cap for PEN Blackstar attempts reduced to 20
• Agris Anvil cap for all Godr Ayed weapons reduced by half

After the NA/EU hosts stopped messing around with the volume levels, we next heard about updates for new players to deal with the overwhelming gear progression path. Many of these are benefits to new players specifically, but some updates will help veterans too.

The Season server is getting a revamp, giving 1000% combat experience buff permanently. New players will also be given failstacks ranging from 50 to 100. Further rewards include Atanis Elements to help with your infi potion and Oquilla Pieces of the Old Moon to help with your guaranteed PEN accessory.

Players graduating from the Season will be helped further on their progression journey with a system that guarantees PEN boss gear enhancement and new HEX to DEC enhancement levels for graduated Tuvala equipment. A DEC Tuvala weapon is exchangeable for PEN Blackstar one; a DEC Tuvala accessory exchanges for a TET Kharazad one. Look out for the Essence of Ascent items to start breaking boundaries with your Tuvala gear.

For people not hugging Tuvala anymore, Agris Anvil changes come to the rescue. PEN Blackstar enhancement is guaranteed if you fail the enhancement 20 times, down from 40. And the Agris Anvil cap is halved for all Godr Ayed weapon enhancement levels.

Lifeskills

• 3000 mastery cap
• New Preonne accessories, using Kharazad and Manos enhancement principles
• Manos fishing chair, hunting bag, ladle, and flask
• Competitive fishing
• Big ship revamp
• Horsie revamp

Maybe it was too much to expect a brand-new skydiving lifeskill or even to fix the bugs at sea. But GoodLuck members rejoiced at these welcome changes to lifeskilling in BDO.

This section is huge so I’ve subdivided it.

Mastery

Mastery cap’s going up to 3000, up from 2000, meaning a higher goal to aim for to keep getting mastery benefits. To help get there, Pearl Abyss announced new Preonne accessories which are enhanced using concepts from Kharazad and Manos enhancement: enhancement levels go up to DEC, they don’t break on fail, they don’t use failstacks, they use Black Gems as enhancement materials, and they can be listed on the Central Market.

Preonne is designed not to replace Manos but as an alternative pathway to go alongside. It’s an encouragement, rather than just hugging your TRI or TET Manos accessories set for fear of smashing them. Sounds like bai.

But it’s not all gn sus dreams to Manos. Some new tools are arriving: Manos fishing chair, hunting bag, ladle, and flask. These will help reach those higher mastery levels for fishing, hunting, cooking, and alchemy, respectively.

Sea content

Big fans of big fish will enjoy fishing leaderboards, where you enter your biggest catch among five randomly selected species each week. Those who remember or even notice the fishing guide will be delighted to know that that will be revamped along this update, showing your world record fish size for each species among other stats. PA said that the winner will win.

Big ships will get a revamped sailor UI with presets and assignable sailor roles including first mate, boatswain, cook, helmsman, and cannoneer. Sailors can be set to auto-fish while you’re at sea and the feeesh will go directly in your pocket rather than the boat’s pocket.

Sea crystals and Ebenruth’s Nol are getting an improvement. There’ll be a smaller random range in stats for sea crystals, meaning the top stats are easier to get. Processing a Margoria sea crystal will have a chance to produce 1-2 Origin of Margoria rather than the usual 1. Ebenruth’s Nol no longer has durability and will be combinable with regular sea crystals and have the stats of both.

Horse content

Horsies will also neigh happily as they gain 25% more mount exp when you’re trading. You will also be able to capture more wild horsies at once: rock up with an empty wagon and you can cap four horsies and register them all at the stable at once.

Stat gains on levelling up will have a smaller random range, meaning that the top stat increases are easier to get. There’ll be a new “training simulator” UI showing you how your horsie stacks with the rest of the world and other stats like breeding and skill learn chances.

Also everyone’s getting a free mythical horsie of your choice. Choose pegasus if you don’t have one already.

These changes are coming in several patches though Q1 2025.

Item

• Tagged characters can be in two places at once
• Full gear tag cost reduced to 45 Marni’s Unstable Fuel
• Maid equipped items from other chars
• Auto-move items from maid, from residence storage, and to guild storage
• Choose your guild mission
• Workers’ rights
• Removing expiry on items

Next, guildies grimaced as the NA/EU host reading this section repeatedly pronounced “since” as “seinz”. Nevertheless, these QoL updates quickly turned those grimaces into smiles.

Marni

Marni is gerat – even more so since he’s reduced the tag cost by 90%. A full gear tag will now cost 45 Marni’s Unstable Fuel, down from 450. That’s 450 mil silver or you might already have some stored and forgotten from guildbosses.

And when you are tagged, your two tag characters don’t have to hold hands all the time anymore. There’ll be an option in the tag UI whether or not to travel together, but you’ll always need to return to the tag town to toggle the setting or untag. PA acknowledged the desire to tag more characters or have two pairs of tagged characters but they said that it’s too hard.

Maids

Maids are getting more versatile – being able to undress characters from the escape menu. Now you can use maids to retrieve items from your other characters while they’re equipped.

Also from the escape menu, we’re getting the ability to change the position of characters. Okay.

Something that bai’d love to see implemented irl.exe after a big day out shopping is auto-move to storages. This now also applies to maids, residence containers, and guild storage. Noice.

Guild

Speaking of guilds, soon guild missions will be selectable rather than waiting, randomswapping, or asking seachat for your missing x5. PA said they’ll adjust the rewards though, so you don’t just spam the BIS guild missions.

There’ll be better accountability with guild mission too so we will be able to see who started them.

Workers

They’ve listened to the workers’ union and they’re getting more rights! Workers have access to the Delivery skill from level 1 rather than having to wait to level 40 before having the privilege. Workers will now be allowed to relocate – you will be able to buy workers from other towns. And multiple workers will be allowed to take the promotion test simultaneously, thus clearing the massive backlog.

Also some items will have their expiry time removed, including J’s scrolls and old moon scrolls.

PvP

• Resistance effects removed from PvP
• Class damage ratio replaced with damage type
• Red Battlefield matchmaking
• Multiple guild league teams per guild
• Black dragon

We heard a giga long speech before finally getting to the point. PvP has already changed and will continue to change.

General changes continue the current trend of not enabling bullies apparently. Resistances will be NA and so CCs will land every time. Class damage ratios will be simplified and depend on damage type: melee, shield, magic, or ranged. PA said that this should lower the boundary for those starting to get into PvP.

See, they can do it. Not just horse race or AoS – RBF will now get matchmaking. RBF rewards are increasing and AFK/quitters will get penalties to their rewards and matchmaking rating.

Guild League will support multiple teams per guild and guildies can be assigned into 1st/2nd/3rd teams. Assuming there are enough in the queue, 1st teams will be matched against other 1st teams, 2nd teams against 2nd teams and so on. And if there are no other guilds, Guild League becomes a friendly intra-guild PvP with no changes to your MMR.

AoS is getting replay files so you don’t need to ask chat to clip that whenever something cool happens. The replay files corrupt themselves after certain updates though.

Node and Conquest War caps will be adjusted, construction mode will be extended to 2 hours and occupation mode will stay 1 hour. The Conquest War reward Black Dragon “Harbinger of Doom” got another sneaky peek but the NA/EU host reading this part called it a “harbringer”.

Content

• Hardcore server
• Atoraxxion: Orzekea and monster zones
• LoML spots and calamity 8-10
• Voltarion dream horse
• Edania new zone
• Snowboarding

Hardcore server will be playable for 2h a day. Not any longer permadeath, you get survival points for killing players and mobs, and defeating mobs helps you get better gear. Gear has durability, is not repairable, and loses durability on death. On dying, you lose some points and respawn at a random location. There’ll be random events from pilgrim sidequests, dark fog “last man standing” mode, and Puturum/Laytenn spawns.

New Atoraxxion biome Orzekea is arriving as well as regular monster zones accompanying each of the biomes with a recommended 350 AP.

Land of the Morning Light is getting a new monster zone at Golden Pig Cave with an interesting piggy bank mechanic. Bring your own gear to Calamity 8-10 with a minimum 330 AP and the same server buff rewards as Calamity 7. The higher Calamity bosses also give rewards for the new Voltarion dream horse.

Voltarion electric dream horsie was revealed as a content reward with a different acquisition path compared to the existing dream horsies. Certain PvE and PvP activities give the materials to acquire the Voltarion horse.

We got a sneak peek at Edania, which will feature several different landscapes including a lush green mountain, Enslar’s wasteland, and Jordine’s house. They introduced the concept of being the lord, or Edana, of a landscape, meaning you get to Alt+C characters who intrude without penalties to Karma and you get to collect taxes on your land.

Didn’t have this one on my bingo board – snowboarding! Finally we’ll be able to snowboard down the Mountain of Eternal Winter, and there are corresponding Noonbora outfits available to go with this update. Snowboard back accessory included.

Gifts

• 10,000 Cron Stones
• Failstacks up to +250
• 4 J’s Hammers
• 2 Mythical Censers
• 27 Devours
• 4 Outfits
• Black Spirit fairy appearance change coupon
• Mythical Dream Horse selection box
• 14-day yellow dragon

Christmas comes early with these gifts and continue into the new year in the form of daily login rewards and the winter event starting 9 January 2025. This year’s coupon code is GRATEFULTENYEARS to get your crons and failstacks right away.

Some special gifts that we haven’t seen before include special J’s Hammers for Kharazad and Soverign gear only, a Black Spirit fairy appearance coupon, a Mythical Dream Horse selection box, and the cool 14-day yellow dragon. Bai look forward to seeing lots of air traffic soon.

Np enjoy!